The Space We Take brings together a selection of portraits from the ONE Archives collection across a range of media, with many of them on view for the first time. From photography to intaglio prints and oil painting to assemblage, these works speak to the human instinct to depict ourselves and others as well as the desire to see ourselves in others. The sitters or subjects likely never imagined themselves alongside their odd companions. Here, the soft gaze of an unknown female sitter, captured in an albumen print, catches a glance of leathered lawyer Owen Trainer (1993-94) in Gordon Pollock’s equestrian inspired motorcycle portrait. Eve Fowler’s young wrestler towers over Mundo Meza’s marker-on-velvet portrait of Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones (Brian, c. 1969). Laura Aguilar’s black and white Gil Cuadros portrait from 1980 is juxtaposed with Michael Hossner’s colossal abstract Paule (Anglim). Despite their differences, they all have ONE thing in common, and their home at the Archives cements their place in our history. This show celebrates the diversity and range in artist and sitter alike and serves as a reminder of both our strength as a community and our historical longevity. As scholars Flora Dunster and Theo Gordon remind us in their 2024 publication Photography – A Queer History: “Committing a person to memory honors their presence in history and moves their image forward into the future. Photographic portraiture can allow queer subjects to appear on their own terms, a public-facing mirror of the sitter’s self-perception. This visibility can also be weaponized, exposing queer subjects to prejudice and violence. Portraiture, then, does not just open the space to be seen, but asks us to consider who accesses that space, for what reasons and to what effect…In this way, the history of queer portraiture is also a demand for care, calling us to tend to those who have been brought into representation, as well as those yet to be pictured.” We are proud to exhibit a selection of recent donations, including paintings by James Huber and Michael Hossner by Lee Draper, prints from the Fairoaks Project by Gary Freeman and Nick Macierz, and Arthur Tress photography donated by the Vein Family. The exhibition also includes work by Eve Fowler, Amos Badertscher, Nancy Rosenblum, Laura Aguilar, Logan Beckett, Marc Geller, Simon Gad, Mundo Meza, and Ricardo Reyes, among others. Please join us for a public opening on June 13, 2025 from 6 - 9pm. The exhibition will run through January 10, 2026. The archive is open Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm, please check our website for up to date information on hours. Stay tuned for more programming! ____ ‘...we call upon Gay Brothers to tear off the ugly green frog-skin of Hetero-male imitation, to reveal the beautiful Fairy Prince hidden beneath.” —Harry Hay, 1979 Halo Starling’s solo exhibition, Fairy Prince, will open downstairs at the ONE Archives in June 2025. The exhibition will present a variety of new work based on his research on the Radical Faeries, particularly the New York Radical Faeries Collection and the Harry Hay Papers at the ONE Archives at USC. The radical faeries are a loosely affiliated worldwide network and counter-cultural movement seeking to redefine queer consciousness through secular spirituality and ecology. Rejecting hetero-imitation, the Radical Faerie movement began during the 1970s sexual revolution among gay men in the US and is now a thriving LGBTQ+ community with a strong trans contingent. Core to the radical faerie lifeway is stewardship of various land sanctuaries worldwide, operating continuously under a functional anarchy model. Fairy Prince will explore the concept of sanctuary, a central tenet of the radical faeries. The exhibition space will become a temporary autonomous zone of sorts, a sanctuary, within which visitors can enter “faerie space” and explore some of the items and artwork on display. Projects included in the exhibition will include hand-crafted textile art, collage films, cyanotypes, a collage film and installation, and a zine, mounted alongside archival selections from the New York Radical Faeries Collection and the Harry Hay Papers. Halo Starling has been an artist-in-residence at ONE Archives since June 2024. As part of the 2024 USC Libraries Summer Fellowship in Sustainability Studies. This exhibition is the culmination of his year-long work with the collections at ONE Archives. “Fairy Prince” will open on Friday, June 13th, with an opening party, and be on view all summer.